Agree due to the Big Ten Conference’s inclusion of four West Coast schools (U Washington, U Oregon, UCLA, & USC).
The Big Ten Conference wants Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and a major football school located in Florida for various reasons including recruiting. And recruiting may be an issue if the candidacy for either one or both of Cal & Stanford come before the Big Ten Conference gods as USC & UCLA do not want recruiting competition for West Coast players who want one of the two major conferences (SEC & Big Ten). This is why Texas A&M wanted, and reportedly received, assurances that U Texas would not be allowed to join the SEC. So much for oral promises.
P.S. After further reflection on this weekend’s college football results, Notre Dame may demand exclusion of Texas A&M from Big Ten membership candidacy as a condition to move to the Big Ten Conference.
While much of the discussion around conference choice is around football - for obvious reasons! - it’s worth remembering that there literally dozens of other teams that are also part of that decision, for better or worse.
Personally, I always liked the PAC 10 (more than the PAC 12) for how it offered fans of any sport the relative ease of being a fan both home and away. Many now say that the ACC makes it easier for distant fans to catch an away game closer to home, and while that’s true, it isn’t quite the same thing as seeing the same friends week in and week out up and down the Coast. I know, not the reason for a conference, but still, a loss.
I read where the GA Tech students took the goal posts from the stadium, marched with them to the school president’s home, and tossed the goal posts into his swimming pool.
On a much smaller scale, I had the pleasure of watching an exciting DIII game Saturday between the Bates Bobcats and the Amherst Mammoths in Lewiston this weekend.
Bates won in double OT, after having been down by 16 points in the 4th Quarter, and it is always awesome to see the guys at this level playing so hard and with so much passion.
Not too many players for the NESCAC go on to the NFL (Kicker Stephen Hauschka Middlebury '07 went on to play more than 10 years in the League, was the last on to play in a regular season NFL game) but it was a fun atmosphere and a great kickoff to the NESCAC season!
I have a random and vaguely related to college football question. I am a little overwhelmed by the Clemson parent FB page, so I don’t want to ask there and am hoping for some general guidance here.
Preface - I’ve only ever been to one college football game in person. It was when we were looking at schools for S25, and UTK hosted an OOS student recruiting weekend, complete with football tickets. It was a night game and UTK had activities planned for earlier in the day. We stayed within a short driving distance, parked early in the morning and logistics were simple and easy for driving/food etc because it was either planned for us or there were many available options.
We’re going to our first football game at Clemson this weekend. It’s parents weekend. Clemson is a small town, and there’s no reasonable lodging nearby. We’re staying in Greenville, which is 45 minutes away on non-football game days (we’ve been told to expect 2-3 hours on gameday, depending on how early we leave). We’d like to see our son at least a little bit over the weekend. He’s basically said maybe he’ll see us Friday, but probably not for dinner. So our plan is just to do our own thing Friday and then try to hang with him on Saturday (he has a ticket to sit with us at the game). The game is at noon, so should end well before dinner time.
Here’s my question - typically do people stick around town after a noon football game? Should we aim for dinner nearby somewhere or look farther afield? There are plenty of restaurants in Greenville, where we’re staying, but we really don’t want to drive 45+ min to get to dinner, then drive 45+ min to bring S25 back, then drive ourselves the 45+ to go to sleep after a day where we have to leave our place by 6:30AM to get to our parking spot without traffic, then we sit in the hot sun all day. We’ll be wiped.
And yes, I fully acknowledge that I am overthinking this. Really, I just need to start looking for places to make a reservation and take what I can get. But honestly the energy and drama and all the level of over the top craziness on the parents FB page has me overwhelmed and feeling vaguely like a failure for not already having a plan.
A game with a noon kick-off should end around 4-ish p.m.; I suspect that people will hang around to hit the bars and then stay for dinner. You might consider making reservations for dinner in Clemson, although it could be a little late to do so; if you are unsuccessful, then you might have to go farther afield for dinner.
I really don’t know Clemson but I deal with PSU weekends all the time. If you can’t get reservations there are probably a lot of places that don’t take them. Your S should know them. Go immediately to get on wait list or prepare for the lines. Even further towns could be an issue for reservations.
Does everyone have their heart set on a big dinner? I imagine football plus parents weekend, everything everywhere will be just nuts. As someone who doesn’t like crowded places anymore, we would lean toward picking up something from fast dining or get something from deli/supermarket deli and take it to a park or lake or river or anywhere where it wasn’t so crazy. It’d be faster (and quieter), and then you’d have more time to spend walking around campus/town with S.
I believe Saturday should have nice enough weather for this…
I would hate all that driving in one day, too, though I’d do it for ds.
Thinking outside the box … could he come back to the hotel with y’all and spend the night? Y’all could just order in pizza and have a fun, chill hang. I don’t know whether the drive home would take you in the campus’ general direction, but you could drop him off on the way thar next morning. Or could you skip dinner with him that night and opt for brunch the next day. If you are already heading in that direction, you could pay for an Uber to/from some portion of the trip.
Thank you everyone, such good suggestions! I’m thinking the pizza or picnic idea might be the best way to go here. Because no, we don’t need to do big and fancy or sit down - we aren’t really big fancy people anyway. Being so new to school and not having a car or any money, he really hasn’t explored the area so he doesn’t know what to suggest in terms of a place to go to get dinner. But we could definitely hit up some place for subs or a carry out pizza and go sit outside - Clemson has a beautiful lake, and I bet we could just bring out our camping chairs and sit and eat there. That feels much more achievable than trying to find someplace to go.
Thank you for the pep talk! Given that my dad was in the seminary, and my mom was in an all women’s college, this was definitely not part of my culture growing up. Then I went to William & Mary which, while it HAS a football team, it’s certainly nothing like this. So this level of (waving arms around in the air) everything, is all new to me!
I may be new to college football, but I’m a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan married to a Yankees fan. Talking smack about sports is a way of life in our house.
! (lightly poking fun from an SEC gal)